A Single Man

Directed By: Tom Ford

Written By: Tom Ford and David Scearce

Starring: Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Nicholas Hoult, and Matthew Goode

Director of Photography: Eduard Grau, Editor: Joan Sobel, Production Designer: Ian Phillips, Original Music: Abel Krozeniowski

Rated: R for some disturbing images and nudity/sexual content.

    Every shot in Tom Ford’s A Single Man feels it could be ripped from a magazine ad. The meticulously crafted beauty and color in each, along with the astute movement and changes in tone create a world that is not fake and missing in depths, but where beauty is essence, and beauty is what is worth living for. Even when surrounded by the darkness, beauty is lying just beneath the skin of a person, the touch of a rose, or the stare from an eye.

    This is the world that Mr. Ford creates for his directorial debut. If his name sounds familiar, it is because Mr. Ford revolutionized fashion giant Gucci earlier this decade before breaking off into his own world. Now Mr. Ford takes on the movies, adapting Christopher Isherwood’s seminal gay liberation novel and dazzling it with sublime beauty, and centralizing its themes in a subtle and delicate matter.

    Mr. Ford, adapting with David Scearce, sticks close to his source material. English professor George Falconer (Colin Firth) must lead out another day in his typical Los Angeles 1962 life, while pains from the past continue to haunt him. But this day, George has decided that he can close everything up and shoot himself. Why is George so depressed, and the colors he sees the world so dark and gray? He has recently lost his lover Jim (Matthew Goode), and is unable to move on. Because he must suppress his desires outwardly, he holds his pain inside. While he deals with a flirtatious student (Nucholas Hoult) and a close female friend (Jullianne Moore), George moves scrupulously through the delicacies of his day so he can feel at peace at the end.

    A Single Man, as it presents itself, is a carefully clever piece. The very few sequences in the film are all cleverly designed, as Mr. Ford references Hitchcock, Almodovar, and Wong Kar Wai. There’s also a beauty to how Mr. Ford creates the desires of George—when he sees something he truly loves, the colors light up into a Technicolor dream haze. This technique is almost too simplistic, but it’s the simplicity of what George can still grasp that makes it wondrous.

    It also helps that Mr. Ford has enlisted Mr. Firth to take his lead role, one that he buries and digs into with brutal emotional pain. Although little is seen or told of Jim, it can be read in Mr. Firth’s movements and his solitude. 16 years is a good deal of time, and Mr. firth processes each of those years. Although Mr. Ford is showing so much visually with his camera, he and Mr. Firth have left so much unsaid in his deeply moving performance. The same can be said for Ms. Moore’s brief appearance. Anguished by her loss of the men surrounding her, Charley walks around in fantasy, trying to use beauty to succumb her grief. In her performance in Boogie Nights, Ms. Moore cracks down at a point—here there is no breakdown, or least a truly huge one. Ms. Moore’s and Mr. Firth’s final moment together is an astonishing one that leaves much to be wondered.

    Set somewhere between Mad Men and 2046, Mr Ford’s stunning debut is built on the premise that his source is so invigorating for his bold and risky style. A Single Man, if any other story, could have been seen as another clothes commercial. At sometimes, it may feel that, but look at the textures of how Mr. Ford interprets his text, and connects to it in his insightful choices. This beauty mogul goes bold or goes home.